While most business and management schools continue to teach the functions of a corporation separately - production, marketing, finance, personnel - the reality is that for a corporation to endure each division must work with the others to create an effective system. Re-Creating the Corporation is Ackoff's blueprint for understanding and creating these model corporate systems. In four comprehensive sections - Background, Process, Designs, and Change - Ackoff lays out in clear concise prose the five organizational goals of successful corporate systems: plan effectively, learn and adapt rapidly, democratize, introduce internal market economies, and employ a flexible structure that will minimize the need for future restructuring. And through a deft mix of practical and theoretical examples drawn from a wide range of applications in a wide range of firms, this book ultimately guides executives to the system best suited to meet their organizational goals. (text from the publisher)